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The State of AI Gateways in 2026 is here!
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The Zilla MCP Gateway is available — governed agent access to your APIs, services, and real-time data.
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Pricing

Priced on Gateway count 

Start free with the open-source gateway. Add support and enterprise identity when you go to production. Bundle the management layer at enterprise scale. No per-seat charges. No throughput metering.

Community

Zilla Gateway, open core. Run it yourself on any infrastructure.

Free

Unlimited gateways, self-managed.

Get it on GitHub

  • All protocols: HTTP, MQTT, gRPC, WebSocket, SSE, TCP, TLS

  • JWT guards, TLS, schema validation, Prometheus and OTLP

  • Kafka: protocol mediation to and from Kafka, for non-Kafka clients

  • AI and MCP: MCP gateway, spec-driven tools from OpenAPI, tool discovery

  • Community support via GitHub and Slack

  • Aklivity Community License (source-available)

Plus

Zilla Plus Gateway. Hardened builds, enterprise identity, and support under SLA.

Contract

Per gateway. No minimum.

Talk to an engineer

  • Everything in Community, plus:

  • OAuth, API keys, and vendor IdP guards including Azure AD

  • Hardened AMI and container images, Secrets Manager, CloudWatch, Syslog

  • Kafka: Kafka-native client proxying, secure public and private access, virtual clusters, AWS MSK, Confluent Cloud, Redpanda

  • AI and MCP: per-user identity on every tool call, semantic tool search, auto-sized eager tool sets, multi-node MCP sessions

  • Gold support: 12x5 coverage, 8-hour response

  • Zilla Console available as a flat-rate add-on

Enterprise

Zilla Plus Gateway with the Zilla Console management layer bundled in.

Contract

Per gateway. From 8 gateways.

Contact sales

  • Everything in Plus, plus:

  • Zilla Console management layer, bundled

  • API and Data Product catalog

  • Self-service developer portal

  • Governance, audit, and RBAC

  • Platinum support: 24x7 coverage, 2-hour response, named TAM

  • On-premises and air-gapped deployment

Compare every tier

The Model

Two layers. Three tiers.

Every tier is built from the same two pieces. Layer A is the Zilla Gateway data plane, which serves the Kafka and MCP use cases. Layer B is the management layer: the Zilla Console, and the governance capabilities that sit on top of it.

Layer B — CONTROL PLANE
Zilla Console
Included in Enterprise, add-on in Plus
API Data Product Catalog
Self-service developer portal
Kafka explorer GUI
Governance, audit, and RBAC
Gateway observability
Policy and identity
Teams and organization mgmt.
Layer A — Data plane
Zilla Gateway
Every tier
Kafka GatewayMCP Gateway
Community
Layer A, open source.
Plus
Layer A in full, with the Console as a flat-rate add-on.
Enterprise
Layer A plus all of Layer B, bundled.

Compare

Compare Tiers

One gateway, one meter, two ways to deploy it. The capabilities you need depend on which.

Capability
Community
OSS
Plus
PLUS
Enterprise
ENTERPRISE
The gateway
Full protocol support: HTTP, MQTT, gRPC, WebSocket, SSE, TCP, TLS
AsyncAPI and OpenAPI spec-driven config
Stateless, scale-out data plane
Self-managed on any infrastructure
Kubernetes and Helm
Hardened AMI and container images
If you are deploying for Kafka
Protocol mediation to and from Kafka, for non-Kafka clients
Apicurio and Karapace schema registries
Kafka-native client proxying
Secure public and private Kafka access
Virtual Kafka clusters
AWS Glue and Confluent schema registries
If you are deploying for AI and MCP
MCP gateway and model proxying
Spec-driven MCP tools from the OpenAPI specs you maintain
Tool search, keyword ranking
Eager tool sets, operator-curated
Per-user identity on every tool call
Tool search, semantic ranking
Eager tool sets sized automatically: by token budget, by session usage, or by authorized scope
MCP sessions served across a multi-node cluster
Identity and security
TLS, mTLS, and schema validation
JWT and inline guards
OAuth and API-key guards
Vendor IdP guards: Azure AD, AWS Cognito, AWS IAM
AWS Secrets Manager
Scale and telemetry
Prometheus and OTLP exporters
AWS CloudWatch and Syslog exporters
Shared state across instances (Redis, Hazelcast)
On-premises and air-gapped
Management (Zilla Console)
Zilla Console
Add-on
API and Data Product catalog
Self-service developer portal
Governance, audit, and RBAC
Pricing and buying
Gateway priced by
Free
Gateway count
Gateway count
Minimum gateways
None
None
8
Zilla Console add-on priced
Flat rate
Bundled
AWS Marketplace pay-as-you-go
Private Offer
Free trial
Not needed
On AWS Marketplace
Support
Support plan
Community
Gold
Platinum
Coverage
GitHub, Slack
12x5
24x7
Severity 1 response
8 hours
2 hours
Severity 2 response
1 business day
4 hours
Chat, email, phone, portal
Technical Account Manager

FAQ

Pricing Questions

What is the difference between Zilla Gateway and Zilla Plus Gateway?
How are Plus and Enterprise priced?
What counts as a gateway?
What do Gold and Platinum support include?
I am only deploying the MCP gateway. Which tier do I need?
Which Kafka capabilities are in Community, and which need Plus?
Do dev and test gateways count?
Can I add the Zilla Console to Plus, and how is it priced?
Do I need the management layer to run the MCP Gateway?
What is the difference between Plus and Enterprise?
How do I buy, and is there a trial?

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Explore pricing

Straightforward, usage-based pricing with no per-connection surprises — start free and scale when you are ready.

Pricing details

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Trade notes with the engineers running Zilla in production, and get help from the team in Slack or Discord.

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